4292 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
The mano-kihikihi and the smaller lalakeas are generally taken in 
gill nets, seines, or bag nets, together with other fishes. The larger 
lalakea and the other species are taken with hook and line, as no net 
would be strong enough to hold them. Shark hooks are generally 
made of a piece of hard wood carved in the shape of a hook, with a 
piece of sharp-pointed bone lashed to the end of it in order to form 
the tip. But few of the hooks seem to have a barb, and it speaks 
well for the dexterity of the fishermen that they succeed so well in 
fishing with these. 
Sometimes the native seeks the shark in coves and caves below the 
surface after the fish has gorged itself and sleeps with its head forced 
into the sides of its resting-place. The diver gently slips a noose 
around the tail of the shark, which is then hauled up and dispatched. 
Experts have been known to capture six or eight sharks in one day in 
this manner. 
In the olden times the catching of the niuhi was made a great event, 
but there has been no regular fishery for it for nearly one hundred 
years. The following account of the manner of its capture is especi- 
ally interesting: * 
The common kind of shark was caught in vast quantities, and the liver, with a 
little of the flesh, was wrapped in ki leaves and baked underground, then from fifty 
to a hundred of the largest single and double canoes were loaded with baked meat 
and large quantities of the pounded roots of awa, mixed with a little water, and con- 
tained in large gourds. The fleet would sail many miles out to sea in the direction in 
which the niuhi is known frequently to appear. Arrived at a comparatively shallow 
place, the canoe containing the head fisherman and the priest and the sorcerer—who 
was supposed to be indispensable—would cast anchor; meat and the baked liver 
would be thrown overboard, a few bundles at a time, to attract sharks. After a few 
days the grease and scent of cooked meats would spread through the water many 
miles in radius. The niuhi would almost always make its appearance after the third 
or fourth day, when bundles of the baked meats were thrown as fast as it could 
swallow them. After a while it would get comparatively tame and would come up 
to one or other of the canoes to be fed. Bundles of the liver with the pounded awa 
would then be given to it, when it would become not only satiated, but also stupe- 
fied with awa, and a noose was then slipped over its head, and the fleet raised anchor 
and set sail for home, the shark following a willing prisoner, the people of the nearest 
canoes taking care to feed it on the same mixture from time to time. It was led 
right into shallow water till it was stranded and then killed. Every part of its bones 
and skin was supposed to confer unflinching bravery on the possessor. The actual 
captor, that is, the one who slipped the noose over the niuhi’s head, would also, ever 
after, be always victorious. This shark’s natural home is, perhaps, in the warmer 
waters of the equator, as the Gilbert Islanders, now here, make the assertion that it 
is very frequently seen and captured at their group. The tradition here is that it is 
only seen just after or during a heavy storm, when the disturbed waters perhaps 
drive it away from its natural haunts. 

The use of human flesh as bait was in great vogue among the 
Hawaiian chiefs. It was cheaper than pig, was equally acceptable to 


* Hawaiian Fisheries and Methods of Fishing, with an Account of the Fishing Implements used by 
the Natives of the Hawaiian Islands. By Mrs. Emma Metcalf Beckley. 
